I arrived at the final frontier of the Philippines, well kind of.  I arrived in Puerto Princesa which is the gateway to the final frontier.  This area is famous for coral reefs around Honda Bay and the worlds longest underground river in Sabang, both of which are day trips from here.

Across from it is a memorial for US military personel that died here at the end of World War Two when it was occupied by the Japanese.

This is the only place in the entire province (island) where you can get cash.  After this, no more banks, no ATMs, and limited power.  I’m told that the phone companies have made a push for reliable phone service though.  SMART has just ran an undersea cable between here and Manila to provide 3G and LTE services. 

I have a couple nights here to see Honda Bay and the underground river and then will go up to El Nido for 4 nights before returning here to fly to Manila.

Other than the Mactan shrine there is not much else to see on Lapu Lapu island.  After the shrine, if you continue along the road you reach a bunch of high end resorts.  These seem like the kind of places where people fly into Cebu, get a shuttle to the resort and don’t leave there for a week.

Lunch ran in at 750 pesos, which is about 18$ Canadian.  From a western perspective it’s not that bad, but to put it in perspective here, I can usually eat lunch for 100 – 200 pesos ( 2.50$ – 5.00$).

The place was pretty quiet with a mixture of westerners and well dressed Filipinos.  The resorts clocks in at 200$ US per night which seems crazy expensive here!

I took a jeepeny back into town which got some smiles from the staff and some odd looks from westerners staying at the resort.

The Philippines big hero is Lapu-Lapu who defended Cebu against Magellan back in 1521.  The location where the battle happened is on Mactan island where the Cebu airport is located.  Since I’m staying on the island tonight to catch a morning flight tomorrow, I decided to check it out.

Apparently Magellan was wounded by a spear to the head and retreated to his boat, where he later died.  The boat left Cebu and continued on to finish circumnavigating the globe.

From Cebu city itself it’s kind of difficult to get here.  However, if you are already on Lapu Lapu island then you can ride a jeepeny around the back of the airport for 10 peso.